


I Wonder as I Wander

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2014: Brothers, Soulmates, and Other Such Sexiness [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Darkness, First Kiss, Losing Sam, M/M, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:38:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby sends Sam and Dean to investigate a strange town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wonder as I Wander

**Author's Note:**

> Day fifteen of my fic advent calendar. Prompt: power outage.
> 
> Kinda in love with this one. I've always wanted to write this kind of horror scene, and I hope it comes across as vividly and creepy as it did when I was writing it. 
> 
> And before you ask: I have no idea.

Bobby had called late last night from somewhere up in the Canadian Rockies, the connection absolute shit but he’d gotten the point across: something strange happening in a town in east Ohio, and his hunch was that somebody need to go there and figure out what was going on.

That _somebody_ , of course, was Sam and Dean.

They’d been outside of Orlando, chasing summer the week before Christmas, and it had taken every puppy look in Sam’s arsenal to get Dean off his ass and into his jacket and back into the car, headed north.

“It’s probably nothing,” he gruffs for at least the twentieth time since they’d crossed the Mason-Dixon line. “He didn’t even say what the hell was wrong. No bodies, no body _parts_ , nothin’. You sure he didn’t say anything else?”

“Nothing else, Dean,” Sam explains, patience threaded through his voice, though it grows thinner with every repetition of this conversation. “Just that we need to go to Alliance, Ohio.”

“Into a fuckin’ snowstorm, probably. Did you tell him we were stayin’ at a place with a pool? Did you tell him?” Dean shifts around in his seat, his ass sore from sitting in the car for so many hours. Sam just breathes out a laugh and shakes his head, smiling out the window at the increasingly flat scenery.

“I’ll get you some hot chocolate when we get settled in up there. Promise,” Sam’s voice is soft, like he’s thinking about something else, maybe. Dean glances over with a frown, not really liking to be placated, especially when Sam wasn’t really giving him his actual attention.

“Ohio is the asshole of America,” he declares out of nowhere, a perfectly timed OHIO WELCOMES YOU sign flying past them right at that second. He glares at it and Sam bursts out laughing, a sound that Dean can’t help but smile at.

 

The radio goes out only seconds after they cross into Alliance city limits, the lights flicking off, sound stopping completely. They both look down at it, on edge and on guard at exactly the same time.

“Sammy--”

“I got it.”

Sam kneels in the seat to reach into the duffel in the back, coming back with his gun, a flask of holy water, and a container of salt. Dean watches obsessively out of the corner of his eye, absolutely hating that he can’t do anything but drive while Sam gets armed. They’re both as quiet as they can manage, their breath regulated, eyes darting around the car as they fly down a normal looking street, the sun just now setting; dark, moody clouds thick with color and the promise of snow. 

“Maybe it’s just bad reception,” Sam says softly after a long moment, sitting very still, his eyes darting around, looking for anything unusual on the sidewalks they pass, the houses lined up on either side of the road. “Maybe a fuse--”

The car dies.

The engine just stops, the comforting, reliable rumble of it shutting down like a switch flipped off. Dean grips the wheel tight, his teeth clenched as he coasts down the empty street, pulling over into a parallel parking space and turning off the ignition.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” he whispers, heart rate kicking up. Sam places Dean’s gun in his hand the second he uncurls it from the wheel, and they get out of the car at the same time, gravitating toward each other when they slam the doors closed.

Their arms brush, Dean relaxing the tiniest amount just for the touch. He grips the butt of his gun, finger hovering over the trigger while they scan their surroundings. 

“Call Bobby. Tell him to get us some more information. _Something._ This is fucked up. Something’s messin’ with my car, man.”

Sam makes a soft noise under his breath, and Dean tears his eyes away from the darkening horizon to glance over at him.

“Phone’s dead,” he mutters, smashing every button on the keypad, the screen staying just as blank as the headlights of the Impala are right now.

“What the hell’s goin’ on, Sammy?” He reaches over to tug Sam by the pocket of his jacket, leading him down the sidewalk, following the sign that says _Downtown_.

“Demons? I mean, the way everything’s going off. I’ve never seen that before. Not when it’s messed with the car, too. What else could do that?”

They don’t speak again, not until they turn onto Main Street and get a couple of blocks in. Sam reaches for Dean’s arm suddenly, stopping him in his tracks.

“Dean,” he breathes, staring straight ahead into the darkness that seems almost total now, a true night that Dean hadn’t noticed until this very second.

“What?” He sounds annoyed, impatient, but it’s all a cover for the way the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up, for the fear kick-starting his heart, for the way his hand is clutching at his gun.

“It’s empty,” Sam says softly, his voice so close now. Dean looks around, feeling like a veil’s been lifted, like he can see the sinister among the innocent. His eyes widen, body pressing instinctively closer to Sam. “The whole place. There’s nobody here.”

“No lights either. Look.” Dean points up at the dark storefronts, the black windows of the small office buildings, the few apartments above shops. No Christmas lights on the streetlights. No streetlights. No traffic lights. Darkness.

They fall quiet again, and Dean lowers his gun to listen. Nothing. There’s no sound, a silence so absolute that it’s nearly deafening. No cars in the distance, no music from inside warm apartment buildings, no laughter or doors closing. 

Nothing. Silence. Darkness.

Sam looks up at the sky and Dean follows suit, dusk fading into night now, and the clouds are covering nearly the entire sky, blocking the moon and all starlight.

“Let’s keep walking, Dean,” Sam pleads, his voice barely a sound, but it’s so loud here in the nothingness, every single move they make pronounced, audible. “Maybe there’s just some kind of power outage in the area?”

“Explain the car, then,” Dean whispers. “And why there’s nobody here. There are cars parked on this street, but there’s nobody. _Nobody._ ”

“We need to keep walking.” It’s the fear in Sam’s voice, the smallness of it that stirs Dean, makes him turn toward his brother, and he realizes with a start, with a painful lurch of his stomach, that he can no longer see Sam. The dark has found them, surrounded them completely.

“You hold onto me,” he orders, reaching out for him blindly, grappling and breathing an audible sigh of relief when he touches the worn cotton of Sam’s hoodie. He slides his hand down until it finds Sam’s, and he pulls it toward himself and hooks Sam’s fingers into the pocket of his own leather jacket.

“Dean, I’m not five.” There’s the barest hint of amusement in Sam’s voice, but he tucks his hand into Dean’s pocket and steps in close to him. Dean can smell his breath, can feel the heat from Sam’s body, and nothing in the world has ever felt more comforting than that. 

They set off again, taking slow steps in the bitter cold, the air absolutely freezing but there’s no wind, no precipitation. Dean reaches over every few steps to touch Sam’s arm, to reassure himself that he’s still there, that Sam’s okay even if he can’t see him.

They keep walking for what feels like hours, numb, blind fingers sliding over lightposts and benches and parking meters, everything the same block after block: utter silence in complete darkness.

“If demons took over a town, wouldn’t there be more bodies? They’re not exactly--” He reaches over again, fingers slipping to his pocket to touch Sam’s arm when he realizes it’s gone.

Sam’s gone.

“Sammy,” he hisses, the sound echoing into the void. He stops where he is, body tensed like he’s flinching, waiting for something to hit. He closes his eyes and listens, his heart thudding enormously loud in his ears, trying in vain to hear his brother, the scuffle of his big feet, the harsh pant of his breathing, his voice, anything. Anything, god _damnit_ , Sammy.

“Sam, you’d better not be fucking with me. Not right now. Don’t fucking do this right now.”

He can’t even bring himself to raise his voice, to speak at a normal volume. The night swallows it up, every word getting snatched away from him and leaving him with his own panicked breaths, the sound of his boots scuffing on the sidewalk as he fumbles back the way they came.

“Sammy, _please._ ” Hands sliding along brick walls and glass doors, feet tripping over steps and catching on trash cans as he hurries back. He stops, a sudden stroke of genius almost making him weak with relief.

He reaches into his pocket, yanking out his keys and fumbling for the tiny flashlight on them.

He turns the top of it, the little bulb flickering on like the brightest thing Dean has ever seen. He lifts it the second it comes on, shining it towards the street. 

There’s a man there, standing right in the middle of the road, head down, hands in his pockets, and he’s swaying back and forth in place just a beat too fast for it to be normal.

It’s not Sam.

The flashlight flicks off.

Dean takes off at a run then, bolting down the sidewalk, staying right in the center so he doesn’t trip over any more steps, his heart about to jump right out of his throat. He comes to a stop suddenly, freezing in place perfectly still, breath rushing harshly out of his nose. He listens.

Nothing. No footsteps following, not a single sound.

He tightens his grip on his gun, takes a deep, shuddering breath, and keeps walking. 

“Sammy!” Fear is closing up around his windpipe, tightening with a slow, patient fist. This is _not_ right, this is fucked up, and now Sam’s gone, just disappeared into this fucking black hole of a town, and Dean doesn’t realize that his hands are shaking, the gun trembling at his side as he picks up his pace and starts to rush down the street, this seemingly unending street.

He feel a body slam into him out of absolutely nowhere, a shoulder connecting hard with his own, hard enough to bruise, enough to almost knock him completely over. He keeps his footing and reaches out, grasping for the body, hurrying toward where it would have gone past him and finding nothing, touching nothing and no one.

No footsteps.

“S-Sam? Sammy?” His voice trembles, breath caught in his throat. It’s the unknown of this, the sudden presence of this void and the absence of his brother, that terrifies him. It’s like being in a waking nightmare, and Dean wonders wildly if he’s fallen into some kind of doorway into an underworld, into a place of Nothing, an unending terror of silence where everything lies in wait and watches him in the void. 

He turns back around and heads down the street once again, in the same direction as the One Who Touched Him and the One in the Street. He’s past fear now, past hoping to survive this, feels maybe like he’s just looking for someone to make it end, to just get it over with. The minutes slip by and he wonders if he’s going insane, if he’s just imagining all of this, if he’s really curled up in bed in that sweet motel back in Orlando where Sam had taken off his shirt and dove into the pool, all glistening slick and dark and grinning in the chlorinated water, if he’s driving down the road and has fallen asleep at the wheel, finally killed them in a violent crash that he experiences as this, this strange abyss.

There’s a sudden, sharp prick of cold on his nose that melts into wet, and he flinches, stopping in his tracks. Another one hits his cheek, and then another one, and the familiarity of it, the presence of something _new_ here eases the tightness in his chest.

It’s snowing.

He stands very still, letting the snow find him, letting it fall softly on his frozen face, on his slightly parted lips. He’s certain it’s coming any time now, any second, the moment of obliteration, his last second of being alive, and he almost feels like he’s ready for it now. Let it come.

A block away, a streetlight blinks on.

Dean sucks in a sharp breath, his world suddenly changed, illuminated, and he’s terrified once again, afraid of all the things that are Out There that he’s now going to be able to see. That will be able to see him.

He runs toward the light, boots hitting in loud, sharp clicks on the concrete. He stops about twenty feet from the light, his heart skipping.

There’s Sam right beneath it, sitting on a bench.

“Sammy!” He clears the last twenty feet in an impossibly short amount of time, coming to a stop and sliding to his knees so hard in front of his brother that it hurts. He grabs Sam’s limp hands that are resting on his thighs, all his long, dark hair fallen over his face, his head down. Dean grips his hands, pulls them to himself, to his chest. “Sam!”

Sam lifts his head sluggishly, like he’s just woken up, and his eyes are barely open when they meet Dean’s.

“Dean?”

“C’mon. C’mere. Get up.” Dean stands up and yanks Sam up with him, keeping hold of his hands with a death grip, never fucking letting him go now. “What the fuck happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I don’t know,” Sam replies after a long pause, his voice slurred and slow, his body pliant when Dean pulls him to a stop under the streetlight, leaning him against it so he can look him over. “I was walking with you, and then I just… wasn’t.”

Dean steps in close to him because Sam’s swaying, almost like he’s going to tip over and curl up on the sidewalk and go to sleep. 

“Where were you after that?” He waits, watches as Sam’s eyes flutter closed. He grips him by the front of his hoodie and shakes him hard, fear clenching tight around his chest. “Sammy! Snap out of it! Then what happened?”

“Then I was there, and you found me. I dunno, Dean. I don’t. I don’t remember.” Sam lifts his gaze and searches Dean’s eyes, and Dean shakes his head worriedly, hating all that missing time, all that empty time where anything could have happened to Sam and now they’ll never know. He’ll never know what happened.

“Don’t do that,” he whispers, pulling Sam closer, pressing up against him when he feels Sam’s arms wrap around his neck loosely. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

He kisses him then, under the last streetlight, kisses his brother for the first time ever, and he’s certain that it’s going to end here, that their tragedy, the secret, hidden story of their lives will end with a kiss. Sam’s lips firm up under his, and he seems to awaken then, responding to Dean’s touch, his lips parting as he tips his head to one side, the sigh that escapes his lips tasting like relief, like Sam’s been waiting for this just as long as Dean has.

Another light comes on to Dean’s right. And then another. And other.

They break apart, Dean still fisting Sam’s jacket, and they turn to look at the empty street that they can now see for the first time. The snow is falling steadily now, coating everything in white, all of it looking like a picture on a postcard.

A sharp, metallic snap of a car door closing shatters the silence.

“Mommy, tell Zac to give me one, too!”

A store is suddenly lit up and visible right behind Sam, and a family of three steps out of it with the cheerful jingling of the bell above announcing their departure. A car pulls up and slows to a stop at the stoplight that is suddenly working a few feet away, the muffled sounds of Aerosmith coming from within.

Dean turns to look at Sam and finds his eyes already on him. Sam’s awake completely now, his mouth a little swollen, a flushed shade of wet pink, and parted to pant softly.

“Let’s get out of here,” he whispers.

They tuck in close together, Sam’s hand back in Dean’s pocket as they shoulder past sudden throngs of holiday shoppers and couples out on dates and laughing children, both of them silent as the night had been only ten minutes before. The presence of lights and people and sound feel overwhelming now, too much, and Dean closes his eyes for a minute, letting Sam lead the way back to the car.

And the rest of the night, even when their bodies tangle and push together at a motel fifty miles away from Alliance, naked and slick with sweat, when their mouths feed from each other, they keep the lights off, and they don’t speak a word.


End file.
